Joint venture to process more oats for fast-growing market
© Tim Scrivener Europe’s biggest oat processing plant is being built in the heart of a major arable growing region in Northamptonshire.
The state-of-the-art plant, which will be operational by 2023, is being constructed in response to growing demand for oat-based food products and non-dairy drinks.
Three businesses have joined forces to fund the Navara Oat Milling development – the crop production and grain marketing company Frontier Agriculture, farmer-owned Camgrain, and Anglia Maltings Holdings, a food and drink ingredient manufacturer.
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The new mill will sit alongside Camgrain’s Advanced Processing Centre between Corby and Kettering.
Key food and drink manufacturers who use cereal-based ingredients have sites in this region, with one of those, Oatly, set to open a new production facility in Peterborough in 2023, with the capacity to manufacture 450m litres of oat-based drinks a year.
Alpro also has a site in the region, at Kettering.
Although Navara Oat Milling has not revealed the names of its future customers, it says they will be “large food and drink manufacturers that are household brand names”.
All the oats that will be processed at the plant will be supplied by Frontier Agriculture, sourced from growers in the surrounding region, Camgrain farmer members and its network of farm traders.
Dedicated supply chain
Frontier’s managing director Mark Aitchison, who is chairman of the new venture, said the collective vision of the three partners was to create a dedicated oat supply chain that brought farmers and food manufacturers closer together.
“Collaboration with farmers supplying the new mill will see value added in areas such as agronomy advice, seed variety choice and development, quality and sustainability,” said Mr Aitchison.
Premiums to growers are likely to be based on traditional specifications such as moisture and quality, but also on what the company terms as “demonstrable sustainability credentials”.
There are plans to involve Camgrain’s farmer members in developing new oat varieties to supply the facility.
Sixty new jobs are expected to be created at the site once it is operational, though there are no plans to manufacture end products at the plant.